Climate Change Denial as "We don't talk about it."

This summer, Grist has been running a series of videos called Slow Ride Stories, produced by Erik Fyfe and Albert Thrower, who are traveling the Northeast by motorcycle, talking to people about extreme weather and climate change. What strikes you about these videos is not the different opinions about global warming, but the fact that, almost without exception, people squirm when Fyfe and Thrower raise the subject.

"We know what we’re dealing with — that the climate is changing — but we don’t really talk about it as climate change … When I talk to other guys that are growing, it’ll just be, “Man, it was hot,” or “Man, it was cold,” … but that’s the end of the conversation and nobody ever talks about why …" [emphasis mine]

If you think Climate Change Deniers are just the right wing fringe who refuse to face scientific facts, your concept of denial is too simplistic. In her sociological study of of climate change denial,Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life, Kari Marie Norgaard speaks of (chapter 2) "Experiencing" Global Warming: Troubling Events and Public Silence. She describes what we perceive as normal reality as a social process, wherein public failure to mention climate change is an unconscious common agreement to avert attention. In other words this is how denial manifests socially, even when individuals admit climate change to themselves. In chapter 4 "The Cultural Tool Kit, Part One: Cultural Norms of Attention, Emotion, and Conversation" she describes ways we escape uncomfortable emotions through norms of averting attention and public silence.

Even those of us who are concerned, even anxious about Climate Destabilization, are pressured by these norms. We may find it difficult to raise the topic or express strong feelings about it, in public spaces.

“There is established scientific concern over warming of the climate system based upon evidence from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.”

Even that uber-mild statement is now apparently too much for the blinkered anti-science crowd in the U.S. House.

In fact, “concern” is about the weakest possible word you could use to describe how most climate scientists view our current predicament (see Lonnie Thompson on why climatologists are speaking out: “Virtually all of us are now convinced that global warming poses a clear and present danger to civilization”).

... as broadcast journalists transition from tracking Superstorm Sandy to covering its aftermath, some television outlets are starting to explore the role of climate change in more detail. Starting yesterday afternoon, there was an increase in climate-related stories, with extensive segments appearing on Al Jazeera, Current TV, MSNBC, and NBC. (There were also a couple segments on Fox, both of which were used to raise doubts about climate science).

... New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lamented the “new normal” for extreme weather.

“There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement, that is a factual statement. Anyone who says there is not a dramatic change in weather patterns is denying reality,” said Cuomo.